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A lawyer's body refrigerated after murder.
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2003 9:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am highlighting this one paragraph from the story below.
benn

Quote:
With the trial done and additional information coming to light, some jurors now say they wish they had convicted Dutra of murder. The jury members complain they were not allowed to hear Laren Sims' confession during the trial. Several jurors contend that if they had, they would have convicted Dutra of murder. "We didn't see the intent, but if we would've seen Elissa's tapes there would've been the intent," said juror Gary Zimmer.



http://www.news10.net/storyf

USA Today
Sarah Dutra Receives Maximum Sentence for McNabney Killing
A judge in Stockton has sentenced 22-year-old college student Sarah Dutra to 11 years in prison for her role in the murder of her boss, Larry McNabney.

Dutra's attorney asked for probation or a low term, but the judge said Dutra showed a pattern of lies and deceit, factors he said compelled him to sentence her to the maximum term.

The jury convicted Dutra of voluntary manslaughter in the 2001 death of McNabney. Prosecutors said Dutra helped McNabney's wife, Elissa, poison him and then hide his body.

Elissa McNabney, also known as Laren Sims, taped the confession and then hanged herself in her jail cell in Florida.

With the trial done and additional information coming to light, some jurors now say they wish they had convicted Dutra of murder. The jury members complain they were not allowed to hear Laren Sims' confession during the trial. Several jurors contend that if they had, they would have convicted Dutra of murder. "We didn't see the intent, but if we would've seen Elissa's tapes there would've been the intent," said juror Gary Zimmer.

Dutra has already served a little more than a year in jail. With good behavior while behind bars, the 22-year-old could be free before her 30th birthday.

Larry McNabney's family was angered by apparent Dutra's lack of remorse. "She has told jokes with her brother in court," said Tavia Williams. "Even the day the verdict came in she sat there smiling and laughing like she was having lunch with friends."

Story last updated Monday, April 21, 2003 - 6:47 PM
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 11:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.recordnet.com/articlelink/042203/news/articles/042203-gn-1.php

Maximum for Dutra11-year sentence in lawyer's death

By Linda Hughes-Kirchubel
Record Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Spontaneous applause erupted in a San Joaquin County courtroom Monday as a judge ordered 22-year-old Sarah Dutra to spend 11 years in prison for killing Sacramento attorney Laurence McNabney. The former college art student, who for months helped her best friend, Laren Sims, cover up McNabney's murder, was convicted last month of voluntary manslaughter. In animated comments, Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa scoffed at a defense request for probation.

"She is a murderer," he said. "She should have been convicted of murder, but unfortunately, we have to respect the jury's verdict. ... I implore the court, do justice in this case. Throw the book at Sarah Dutra."

By sentencing Dutra to the maximum allowed under the law, Superior Court Judge Bernard Garber did just that. He refused probation and any reduced sentence, citing Dutra's apparent lack of remorse and "sociopathic personality."

Garber described testimony of what he called a "chilling" scene that he said was the turning point of the trial.

"The defendant, along with (Sims), drags the victim's body down the stairs in the Woodbridge house, stuffs him into the refrigerator ... (and) duct-tapes the refrigerator shut," Garber said. "And then they leave him in that refrigerator for about three months or so."

Garber then reminded Dutra she had invited McNabney's son, Joe, to the Woodbridge house to party with her even as his father lay dead in the refrigerator.

"If that's not callousness, I don't know what is," he said. "Probation is denied."

Five months after McNabney's September 2001 disappearance from a Southern California horse show, farm workers discovered his body, laced with a deadly amount of horse tranquilizers, in a Linden vineyard.

Six weeks later -- after weeks on the run from authorities -- an apprehended Sims told Florida investigators that she and Dutra had used horse tranquilizer to poison McNabney, Sims' husband, at the horse show in Industry.
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With McNabney still alive and passing in and out of consciousness, the women drove home, stopping in Yosemite to attempt a burial. But McNabney was still alive, so they returned to McNabney's Woodbridge home. He died there later that night, Sims said, and they stored his body in the garage's spare refrigerator until December.

That autumn the women kept McNabney's office running, excusing his whereabouts to clients, family members and friends, forging McNabney's name on documents and misappropriating client funds. The two spent thousands on new clothes, cars and trips.

"There was forgery after forgery, theft after theft," Garber said. "To me, it just shows a sociopathic personality."

Before Garber imposed the sentence, McNabney's family spoke about the effect Dutra's actions had on them.

"Every day we sat in court, you would smile and wave at your dad, showing no respect or remorse ... for this unthinkable act," said Tavia Williams, McNabney's daughter. "Even while they showed pictures of our dad with body parts sticking out of the ground, or the (video)tapes would describe what the two of you did to our dad, there was never evidence by your body language that you were ever sorry."

Garber also ordered Dutra to pay more than $157,000 in restitution to McNabney's clients as well as attorney fees for her representation, and he stayed an eight-month sentence on a lesser charge -- accessory to murder.

Testa estimated she could be released shortly after she turns 30.

After the hearing, Dutra smiled broadly at her defense team as she held a quiet conversation. Her parents, Mark and Karen Dutra, accompanied by their daughter Rachel, refused to comment on the sentence.

In a letter to Garber -- one of 24 received on the defendant's behalf -- the Dutras begged for mercy for their daughter.

"From a young age, Sarah has reached out to those less fortunate (than) herself with an accepting nature, looking only for the 'good' in others," they wrote. "This past year has been a nightmare for our entire family. With Sarah's promising future, it has been difficult to fathom the situation with which she found herself entangled. We love our daughter and struggle to accept the fact that Sarah has been found guilty."

The letters described Dutra's youth, successes in high school and college, and promising art career.

"Anyone that truly knew her would describe her as a friend of integrity that would always go out of her way to help," wrote Jennifer Murray, a friend and former roommate. "Although I do not dispute Sarah's involvement with Mr. McNabney's demise, I do truly believe that she had been manipulated into her role."

Jurors also attended the hearing, sitting behind the McNabney family. Afterward, Williams embraced several of them, thanking them for their service. Some regret their verdict.

"I wish we would have done our job," said juror Garey Zimmer, 58, who had argued forcefully that Dutra should be convicted on nothing more than voluntary manslaughter. "The judge did his. But we just didn't have all the information that would have made it possible for the murder conviction."

* To reach reporter Linda Hughes-Kirchubel, phone 546-8297 or
e-mail lkirch@recordnet.com
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 1:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am bringing this thread of the refrigerated lawyer who was moved and buried later by his wife about the same time I believe Chandra was moved to Rock Creek Park in a body bag from a Luray cave.

We had identified this as a similar case to Chandra's, and I saw a book has come out on McNabney's murder, Marked for Death: The Cold-Blooded Seduction and Murder of Larry McNabney in paperback. I tried to get Murder on a Horse Trail published for mass market in a paperback, but gee, you have to have a conviction before they'll publish something on a murder. Too bad if no conviction yet. Guess publishing it on the web site will have to do.

Here's what I wrote about this similar case, from chapter Horse Trail:

When you take a look at what she was supposed to have done to get here to be attacked, how isolated this spot is when the Nature Center is closed, and how many people, horses, and dogs would have had to be totally oblivious to the corpse over the side of the hill, not only is it difficult to believe that Chandra jogged here, it is difficult to believe she was here at all throughout the summer Rock Creek Park was searched.

Somebody could back a vehicle off the road right to the path. The road to the Nature Center is open day and night, and there's next to no traffic on it. If you back off the road at grove 18 it even has marker posts to show where to stop backing up.

The thought of moving her body around is morbid, but consider the murdered Sacramento lawyer who was moved by his wife and buried in a vineyard after being kept in a refrigerator for a few months, and during the same year Chandra was murdered. It's morbid, but not inconceivable.

The perfect spot for driving up at night, hauling the bodybag across a field to a path, and then down the side of a hill to make it look like she had been sexually assaulted and robbed, then hidden in a ravine.

A little too perfect. While the ideal remote location for access by car, it was an impossible location for her to have gone to by herself that afternoon, four miles into wilderness, off jogging paths, off the horse trail, off into wilderness.

Chandra's body was not seen for a year even as condoms, beer cans, trash, tree markings, a lipstick, and, if she were there, even her bones littered the area. However, her body was not seen.

rd
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello rd, my meager opinion has never told me that Chandra was murdered in the Park. That would have been the most unlikely place for her to be murdered. It would have been so easy for someone whom she knew to pick her up in an automobile and take her to a place where her murder would not be seen.

To murder someone in a public park during daylight hours does not seem the best way to avoid being caught and convicted of the crime. For someone to tie knots in leggings would take a little time, if not a great amount of time. Certainly a murderer does not want anyone to see what he is doing and tying knots would just increase his/her/their chances of being caught.

Of course from a coverup point of view it might have been very essential for Chandra's remains to be eventually found in the Park. If she was murdered in the Park that might mean that almost anyone passing by in the park could have murdered her, something that a murderer who knew Chandra might very well have wanted the media, and the police, and the public to think.

benn
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're absolutely right, benn. I believe the only people who try to portray Chandra as on that horse trail in the middle of a forest are named Condit or their lawyer Geragos.

Unfortunately some reporters misled the public and police for him as well. They should make amends by reporting where they got their anomymous misleading statements that Chandra jogged in Rock Creek Park.

They may have been misled, but they are not exempt from correcting those self serving statements from Condit to them and the police, untruths that political payola blinded them from seeing to start with.

rd
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